Using Stream Leaf Packs to Explore Community Assembly

In this TIEE experiment, students will explore functional and taxonomic diversity in a stream ecosystem, learn about food web relationships, and learn about the ways in which abiotic and biotic factors determine what organisms are present in a community.

Students will make and install artificial leaf packs in a stream, wait for the leaf packs to be colonized by stream organisms, measure abiotic variables that could influence leaf pack colonization, retrieve the leaf packs and classify the organisms they find in both taxonomic and functional ways, and participate in a class discussion of how the leaf pack community is situated within a larger ecosystem.

This experiment has been used successfully in an introductory Ecology laboratory and in advanced high school Biology courses (8-24 students). This experiment would also be appropriate for introductory Biology laboratories.